cannabisnews.com: No Easy Answer on Risk for Pot Law Debate No Easy Answer on Risk for Pot Law Debate Posted by FoM on May 31, 2001 at 18:16:42 PT Experts offer varying views on safety of marijuana Source: Toronto Star Harmless fun or a true health hazard? As the debate over decriminalizing marijuana picks up steam, Canadians and their elected representatives will have to make that call over the once demonized drug.It's a debate that has simmered for decades, with opinion slowly moving towards a more benign view of pot. But as the discussion takes off in the parliamentary arena - a committee to study non-medicinal drugs was set up Thursday - the focus should shift from long-held fears to scientific facts. So what does science know about the health risks of marijuana use?First of all, despite its myriad purported medicinal uses, marijuana isn't totally harmless. No drug is.''Any drug is potentially dangerous,'' says Dr. Harold Kalant, a University of Toronto pharmacology professor who is an expert on illegal drugs and drug control policy.''It's a question of: How much? How often? Under what conditions? By whom?''Exactly the same caveats apply to alcohol, a drug condoned by most societies, and tobacco, which despite its waning acceptability in North America remains a legal substance.''If we were starting from scratch and society were saying 'What drugs should we adopt as a pleasure drug?' we might choose pot rather than alcohol,'' Kalant ventures.In fact, many of the short-term effects of marijuana use are similar to those of alcohol, while the risks associated with chronic use bear a strong resemblance to those of long-term tobacco smoking.While users are high, marijuana impairs their judgment and undermines co-ordination and concentration. The risks, therefore, of being in an accident would seem to be greater, though there is some dispute as to whether marijuana impairs driving to the same degree as alcohol does. Some experts contend that drivers who are high are more cautious than drivers who are drunk.That said, few would argue that heavy equipment operators or commercial pilots should be allowed to fire up a joint on the job.Just as drinking alcohol during pregnancy is a bad idea, the evidence suggests that mothers-to-be ought to lay off dope.Babies born to regular users tend to have lower birth weights. And children whose mothers were heavy users during pregnancy can show developmental problems when they reach school age - reduced verbal skills, decreased attentiveness, increased impulsiveness.A small portion of marijuana users experience, on occasion, an attack of acute anxiety while stoned, but that passes quickly, Kalant says. However, schizophrenics whose condition has stabilized are at increased risk of a relapse if they smoke marijuana, he adds.And that is pretty much it for the short-term hazards of marijuana use. So is it any more dangerous to roll the occasional joint than it is to pop the lid on a cold beer?''No. I don't think you'd find anybody would tell you that it was more dangerous,'' says Dr. Mark Ware, a professor of anesthesia at Montreal's McGill University who studies marijuana because of its potential in pain control.As with most drugs, the story is different when one looks at chronic, long-term use.''Clearly it's the heavy, habitual smoker who is more at risk,'' says Dr. Donald Tashkin, a leading lung specialist who teaches in UCLA's medical school.And the major problem with marijuana appears to be the fact that most users smoke it.''It's a smoked substance, and all smoked substances have adverse health effects,'' Tashkin says.''I think that the harmful effects of smoked marijuana are under-recognized.''The most evident problems related to chronic use show up in the lungs. An Australian study of users who smoked daily for an average of 17 years found that over 60 per cent had chronic inflammatory lung conditions - exactly the type of problems cigarette smokers develop.''Chronic bronchitis and cough and wheezing and rattling,'' Kalant says. ''Poor lung function.''While there is some suggestion chronic dope smokers are more prone to developing pneumonia, they don't - unlike cigarette smokers - seem to be at greater risk of developing emphysema, a debilitating lung disorder.But they do appear to be at much greater risk of developing head and neck cancers. A recent study from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York City suggested marijuana users are at a two-to-three fold increased risk for these types of cancers.Though marijuana users smoke considerably fewer joints than the number of cigarettes a heavy tobacco smoker goes through, tar intake is much higher per joint and marijuana contains more carcinogens, says Tashkin, who was a co-author of the Sloan-Kettering study.He points to another risk: THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the active agent in marijuana) appears to suppress the body's ability to fight both cancer and infections.A colleague at UCLA gave THC to mice which had been implanted with lung cancer cells. The cells grew more aggressively in those mice than in control mice that did not receive THC.The combined information suggests that chronic use both increases one's risk of getting certain forms of cancer and decreases one's chances of being able to fight it off if it should occur.''Those effects need to be kept in mind,'' Tashkin said.Still other research suggests that smoking marijuana increases the risk of having a heart attack.A study presented last year at a major heart disease conference in San Diego, Calif., said that people with a heart condition were 4½ times more likely to have a heart attack within an hour of smoking a joint. The risk reduces to normal within hours.Why? Well, smoking marijuana drives up the heart rate, increasing the heart's workload.''For young users, that's not a problem,'' Kalant says.''But as you get older and as your coronary arteries start to clog up a little, then if your heart has to work harder and your blood supply can't keep pace there's at least a theoretical risk of increased chances of a heart attack.''Chronic use can also cause physical and psychological dependence on the drug, according to studies from McLean Hospital, a Harvard affiliate. And the Cheech and Chong jokes seem to be true.''Memory, word use, problem solving, drive - these things all seem to be impaired in long-term users,'' Kalant says.But many experts don't buy into the argument that marijuana is a threat because it's a ''gateway'' drug that places users on the slippery slope to crack cocaine or heroine use.Says Kalant: ''That's not really a very potent argument.'' From Canadian PressRELATED LINKS · Marijuana Party of Canadahttp://www.partimarijuana.org/home.html· Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy: http://www.cfdp.ca/· BC Marijuana Partyhttp://www.bcmarijuanaparty.ca/· Cannabis Culture Magazine onlinehttp://www.cannabisculture.com/· Cannabis News http://www.cannabisnews.com/· The Marijuana Newshttp://www.marijuananews.com/Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)Published: May 31, 2001Copyright: 2001 The Toronto Star Contact: lettertoed thestar.com Website: http://www.thestar.com/ Related Articles & Web Site:Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmLet's Get Grip On Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9917.shtmlGrow Your Own Stone http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9915.shtmlCannabisNews Articles - Canadahttp://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=canada Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #13 posted by Cuzn Buzz on June 01, 2001 at 11:59:01 PT PPB Machine Thanks for the post Lung Tech.I have a nephew who runs endurance races, he is also a marijuana smoker (does not use tobacco).He will rarely smoke more than three or four joints in a day, but he certainly has no diminished lung capacity as a result of his long term use, in fact measurements of his lung capacity show him to have far better lung function than the average non-smoker. My Father smoked marijuana as a child with his doctors approval to help his athsma.My family has several memebers who are medical doctors, and my older sister is a Respiratory Therapist (also a toker) and she has yet to meet a patient who can point to marijuana as the cause of their breathing disorder.I'm sure a person who smoked 40 or 50 joints a day would eventualy develop some sort of breathing difficulty from this high rate of usage, but if he had better weed he couldn't stay awake to smoke that much.I suggest to you that persons who inhale deeply and hold the hit are actualy improving lung function by increasing the capacity of their lungs, yes indeed, the humble joint may be natures own positive pressure machine.Just a thought. [ Post Comment ] Comment #12 posted by Kevin Hebert on June 01, 2001 at 10:28:00 PT: Quitting I quit tobacco two weeks ago, with the nicotine patch. I have to say, it works. I have tried quitting many times and this worked the very first time. I have to say I recommend it.The interesting thing to me is that if I need to quit cannabis for a few days, weeks, or months, it's never a problem. But going even a few hours without nicotine was impossible. Sad but true. [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by Doug on June 01, 2001 at 09:07:12 PT Irrelevant While all this is interesting, even if it were true, it is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not cannabis is illegal. So this discussion is a red herring. If we are so interested in avoiding things that damage our lungs, why don't we eliminate automobiles. While I have the personal choice of smoking a joint, I don't have any control over all the people who are driving their polluting cars in front of my house.And if society is so concerned about the smoking part of ingesting marijuana, while don't they allow research into safer methods of doing so. The vaporizer is one means of safer "smoking", but research is needed to improve them.And one of the main causes of marijuana smoking effecting the lungs negatively is the habit of taking long tokes and holding it in for a long time. Neither of these habits have much effect of the resulting high (see Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts chapter 15) and higher potency would also eliminate this need. But of course the substance is illegal. And as was true in alcohol prohibition, prohibition by itself makes a substance more dangerous to use -- remember bathtub gin. [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by Lung Tech on June 01, 2001 at 08:33:48 PT: Thanks Quad d's I'll be checking on you periodically with random urinayses.Evil tobacco heads must be punished! [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by dddd on June 01, 2001 at 07:21:08 PT Thank You Thank you Lung Tech,,,,,seriously.Your graphic description has inspired this smoker to quit tobacco NOW.Sincerely........dddd [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by Lung Tech on June 01, 2001 at 06:55:41 PT correction... COPD -- chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by Lung Tech on June 01, 2001 at 06:52:50 PT: Endless Drowning Cannabis can damage the lungs with long-term, chronic use. Of course, if this is the only argument for keeping use criminal, then we will have to declare war on emphysema, small airways disease, blebs, and bulae, and just make smoking anything an offence. I personnally think smoking cat hair or used bicycle tires should be considered among the gravest of offenses. I have been a repiratory therapist for 13 years, and I have seen the front line of tobacco, and alcohol from a very close vantage point. Maybe the good doctor can agree. It is shear torure to watch what an unrepenant smoker gasping for breath, day in, day out while he lay in a hospital bed. And believe me, once you get to the more advanced stages of COPD(chronic obstructive pumonary disease), even a little too much OXYGEN can KILL YOU. You see, once you get to this stage, your unconscious breathing stimulus is no longer regulated by oxygen levels in spinal fluid, but by carbon-dioxide levels(40.0 mmHg in normal individuals, 50 to 70+ in a COPD patient). If too much oxygen is given, this C02 level comes down rapidly, and a sleeping patient will STOP BREATHING! If they are awake when this happens, they will realize it as extreme shortness-of-breath. You should see the look of panicked terror come across someone's face when they relize that they have to CONSCIOUSLY THINK about taking each breath! It's horrible. It's akin to watching someone endlessly drowning for years. [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by dddd on June 01, 2001 at 01:00:25 PT kinfolk I'm proud to have you as a cousin,Cuzn.................................................dddd [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Cuzn Buzz on June 01, 2001 at 00:39:42 PT Studies, statistics, and , liars dddd has put a well placed finger on one of the main problems the prohibitionists have.Though the anti-freedom prohibitionists love to spout propaganda about studies and statistics, they are almost never able to give chapter and verse citations.Perhaps they have scientificly gifted bacterium living in their rectums doing studies, because they always seem to pull their number out of their a$$e$.Or maybe they are just liars. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by dddd on May 31, 2001 at 20:16:41 PT more of the same rubbish This article is probably well intentioned,,but it seems like the authorwrote it as an assignment....It's written by that same person who writesall the other articles.That persons name is;_______________?"Research suggests.."just doesnt cut it........What research?,,,,by whom???.Research suggests that articleswith no author are written people who are ashamed to take credit for thecrap that they were ordered to write.Studys show that most such articlesare written to gain favor amongst well funded political entities,or corporatemanagement.Like many other articles of this type,this one is full of the bullshit style ofcheap dimestore journalism,that spews forth piles of undocumented crap,thatis essentially meaningless,and useful only as a means of deceiving flocks ofsheeple......Alot is made of the benifits of Marijuana being "anecdotal".......If you want some good anecdotes,you need look no further than the pilesof anti drug crap readily availiable to all,,,paid for by your tax dollars......Massive quanities of tax dollars.......dddd [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by sundog on May 31, 2001 at 19:41:14 PT: funny.... ...if they'd asked me i'd have skewed the results. So straight up- i've been smokin pot for 25 years. i won't argue with some of the findings, but where are they really getting this "proof" from? the thing about studies is that inevitably they obtain the results sought by those who comissioned them. where were the facts and figures obtained? setting and circumstance are important- if these results were obtained from one source, or even several similar sources, say medical histories and hospital records, they would not reflect what is happening outside of that setting. ergo they would not reflect truth. and if these studies had indeed been comprehensive, i think that sometime in the last 25 years somebody would have asked me about my pot experience. funny... i've never talked to a canvasser for a survey on the effects of pot, and i don't know anybody else who has either. so the question still remains; where are they getting their facts from? [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by MikeEEEEE on May 31, 2001 at 18:48:41 PT Smoked Form Okay, smoking isn't good for you, no surprise there. Anyone for brownies? How about using a vaporizer? Somehow they left that out. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: